


A Bit Not Good

by Aozi



Series: Mad, Bad and Dangerous [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Dark Fantasy, John Recognizes the Symptoms in Sherlock and Allows Some Leeway, M/M, Possessive Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Build, Urban Fantasy, not safe or sane, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4444946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aozi/pseuds/Aozi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's back from the dead and John's not impressed, neither is Mrs. Hudson, but she's a lot more understanding than John. In fact, everyone is more understanding than John. This, at least, John understood since no one wants to piss off a self-described, sociopathic Master Manipulator with a broken Governor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Bit Not Good

**Author's Note:**

> This is the bastard, inbred love-child of insomnia and stress. No beta or Brit-pickers. English is my self-taught, second language. Please suspend your disbelief, sail over the plot holes and enjoy!

John hesitated on the threshold of 221B when the black, lacquered door creaked open. The Autumn sunlight streaming through the casement window above it threw smoky patterns along the walls and down the hall. The air's buttery warm and the patterns are insistently coherent in their wispy shapes.

He knew Mrs. Hudson's still out on her errands. Mycroft? No. Lestrade, maybe. The Detective Inspector had taken to letting himself in at all hours to make sure John hasn't eaten a bullet yet.

The heat wafted and curled together again becoming letters. A warning? A name. The bags slipped from his fingers as darkness cuts him down.

John's not surprised upon waking to find wings sticking out the side of his head. He is, however, disconcerted to find himself face down and naked on top of his bed. Winter's coming and he hadn't the time to prep the aging flat. His room should not be this comfortable.

The air around his head changed, becoming softer, nuzzling against the gnarled scar in his left shoulder.

Oh.

Baker Street's Wards are old, registering along his nerves as heat, sweltering and deep. Awake now that their true master was back, in their excitement they basically gave John heatstroke. Eldritch fire unfurls beneath his skin in apology. Then the prickling warmth went back to petting his newest feathery appendages.

Throwing on whatever he picked up first he stumbled down the stairs and nearly impaled himself on bony, blood-slick fingers burning Sigils into the air. There is a large owl at the dead man's feet. The raptors colors and wings are the exact match to the pair folded tightly against his own head.

Also, dead.

Fantastic. He's the owl's soul container. Any Manipulator can See what was done to him and a Master Manipulator would know by whom from the Manipulation’s unique Construction.

_John Hamish Watson--menderhealersteelacridHEATsandsandsand--here. Safesafesafesafety._

Out of the corner of his eyes the walls seemed to expand, expectant, and the air bent in strange ways, the effects nauseating.

_Missing..? Missing. What? Whatwhatwhat? Who?_

When the Ward's inquiries go unacknowledged they reach out to their caretaker, oblivious to social niceties and other human boundaries. Mrs. Hudson's powdery essence, all milk-soft _fleshy_ warmth with hints of papery tea leaves met them halfway, steady and re-assuring.

"You're not surprised," said the ghost, slowing John's haphazard retreat.

"That you're alive?" John shrugged, "No, not really."

He turned sharply into the kitchen then finds the kettle on instinct and spent the next five, uninterrupted minutes staring at his colorful collection of tea tins. He used to be all for instant everything...he made coffee instead.

"So, what's currently reducing my field of vision to straight-ahead and feathered?” As expected he didn't receive a reply.

"Oh, for God's sake," he sighed when the excited tugging slowly wilts, dejected. "At least greet it, even if you won't extend the same courtesy to me!"

Knife-bright eyes flayed him, the impatient intelligence equally caustic and cauterizing but before Sherlock could verbally shred him banded, primary feathers clasped John's face, startling them both. Sherlock reared back, uncharacteristic caution melting into familiar fascination with an arched look down at the owl's corpse.

John realized the owl is attempting to shield his vulnerable temple and eyes from its Manipulator. Who narrowed a look at John, which the doctor interpreted as, "Must experiment. Later." starts prowling the perimeter of the room, coaxing layers of dormant _intent_ , of protection and binding, back into this realm. John sipped his coffee unable to look away as Sigils ignite anew along the Ward's boundaries.

The strained, hollow--What, do Wards truly have feelings? Expectations? It seemed to be waiting for permission, like a pack of well-trained dogs. He never gave it much thought but now it felt, well, relieved as it carefully settled, as if finally daring to touch the physical world it’s been protecting.

That angular face lifts, eyes wide and blank, and for a moment John saw jagged, red lines dripping across pale, pale flesh. Soft roaring in his ears separated into understanding, into meaning, "--couldn't let you come with me. I--"

"Stop." John tripped against the kitchen table in his haste to-- The wings arch out, effectively derailing his thoughts as muscles and bones _which should not be there_ pull his scalp back, making his hair stand on end. Mantling is the term for when a raptor is warning off other predators over its kill, he thinks, dazed and a touch more hysterical than he's comfortable admitting. "No. No, it doesn't work that way, Sherlock. What you did was not a paper cut. You don't get to come back and plaster apologies on me."

He bangs around the kitchen rather more than necessary just to refill the kettle and takes his time wiping down the tea set to keep from flinging more-- _uselesspointless sounds_ \--words around.

"You're not curious, then?"

"Certainly," John disagreed, "but asking after all this time seems a bit gauche, even for you. Either tell me or don't."

After a moment Sherlock smirked and replied, "I'm relieved, John. My faith in you was not misplaced after all."

He nearly snapped the handle off of the tea cup. Placing it back on the tray, he took a step back. "Faith, is it?"

"Oh, _now_ you're offended? How pedestrian."

John breathed in slowly, deeply, and lets it go just as carefully. Locating the strainer he measured the loose tea into it. Each movement is precise, ritualistic, helping to ground his essence into Baker Street. Sympathetic magic. The Wards hum and he knew they're vibrating mirages all across London, heralding the return of Sherlock Holmes. The peacock.

It's too late to get out of the city. Mycroft is probably already on his way.

The heated heaviness seeped through 221's walls, along the floors and now warms John's chilled extremities, carrying with it a familiar, wet metallic scent. Assuring itself John is okay again--he frowned at the green tile back-splash behind the cooker and wondered how long had the Wards been watching over him like this--the energy contented itself with changing the physical properties of the glass in the building; the panes in the sliding doors separating kitchen from sitting room rippled gently.

John's attention is torn from its playfulness when Sherlock demanded, "What do you want from me, John? What more do I need to give?"

What? Disbelieving, John stared blankly ahead, his thoughts are static but scratching at his vocal cords. "Need?” He finally managed to remembered enough of the Queen’s English to choke out a response, “I never wanted anything from you. Not even to be your flatmate. You made that decision, you made that leap!"

"To protect you! And Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson!" Sherlock rounded on him with hair and clothes billowing within expanding ribbons of pale fire. It flickered, cracking sharply through the sound barrier, lashing out. The bullet-ridden, yellow smiley face spray-painted above the couch receives a wide, Glasgow Grin and one eye is gouged out.

 _Mrs. Hudson will have kittens,_ John thought while sipping his scalding coffee. The ceiling is shredded and his morning papers are pulverized. Soft puffs of it swirled through the flat, catching the sun's light.

"I-" Naturally, Sherlock would come to a stop in a luminous beam of it striping the sitting room floor, John mused.

The eldritch energy arcs tightly around the taller man, glistening and crackling with hisses and static pops. The air is steaming around them, like water on heated steel. "John, I am no longer on the side of the Angels."

" _What_? I don't--" John squeezed the bridge of his nose, bewildered. "Alright, what does that even mean?"

Typically, Sherlock ignored him with a rapid-fire question, "Why did you come back?"

"Me? Why are we--Oh, never mind." He deflated into his chair, absently brushing the fluffy remains of his newspaper to the floor. "How did you know I left?"

"You moved out the day you figured out I was still alive and yet you came back 14 days ago. You couldn't know I was returning," Sherlock replied, fingers steepled in front of his lips. His eyes narrow and with lips thinning into a smirk, he demanded, "Why?"

"Deduce it."

Sherlock rolled his eyes but John cuts him off with a squished, garbled noise when he identified the source of the bright, coppery scent. It's dripping from between Sherlock's palms, ruby red and fresh. The hot tang of it clung to the inside of his nostrils.

He lurched forward but Sherlock stopped him cold with, "Will you still follow me into Hell, John?"

Seen between the protective feathers Sherlock is a collage of rich textures against maggot-pale skin, polished leather tips and storm-blue wool. If John hadn't witnessed the Master Manipulator's outburst only his dark curls, cropped and humbled as they are, betray their owner's true emotions willingly. The randomly whimsical thought floats above the confused, grief-fueled rage threatening to cook John's brain.

"Yes," John replied into the silence.

Sherlock did not move for an endless heartbeat but then drifted towards the couch, face hidden in shadows again, and folded boneless into it. "So _how_ did you figure it out?"

John's laughter rustled dryly through the flat, he flexed open his clenched fists. "I didn't. Mrs. Hudson was the one who reminded me about how tenacious you are. You _live_ for your Work. Therefore you had to be alive since your death would hardly shut down Moriarty's criminal empire. If it made your brother become indebted to you in the process, well! It's worth hurting those who love and care about you for that gloating right."

"No," Sherlock huffed, "John--"

"Sherlock--"

"Do stop interrupting me! Sentiment--" John stared fascinated despite himself when Sherlock stopped abruptly.

"Makes you weak?" John supplied. "Abhorrent, I'm sure. Admit it, you left me behind so I wouldn't, could _not_ , clutter up your precious head _space_."

It wasn't a question and Sherlock did not disappoint. "Yes."

The kettle whistled and he pours the water. Gathering the safety kit, sugar and cakes, he deposits the tray on the table in front of the couch. He managed a brittle, "Welcome back, Sherlock." before leaving.

.

Two years to the day, John shook his head at the black slab, Sherlock just couldn't resist the drama could he?

The polished headstone seemed to float just above the soil, reflecting its surroundings in somber shades with only a name the fickle public had already forgotten chiseled in muted gold anchoring it. He no longer fought the need to come here despite realizing that first Winter after Sherlock's very public suicide that somewhere the self-described sociopath is still alive.  
When he left small clumps of fans and curiosity seekers, many wearing blue scarves of various pedigrees, part silently for him.

He didn't know how long he wandered until he found himself back on Baker Street.

"John?"

He looked up, wary. "Oh, Dustin, afternoon."

Dustin Bell is one half of Mrs. Turner's "married ones". Brown hair, brown eyes and brown corduroy are all the impressions he gives.

"How are you? It's been awhile hasn't it, why don't you come up for a drink?" Dustin bounced towards John, invitation bubbling in his wake. Literally. His Manipulations resemble soap bubbles and are just as harmless if unprovoked. Folks tend to burst from the inside out, the mess contained within rainbow spheres when he's upset. "Say yes, come now, you do nothing but sit in your flat when you're not at work."

John allowed Dustin to flutter around him, exclaiming over the deepening lines around his eyes and across his forehead. "Gannon will be finished...soon?" John’s cheeks are patted absently as Dustin checked his phone, then brightly, "Yes. Stay for dinner! He asks if you prefer shrimp pasta or steak? I haven't had steak in ages; Gannon prefers anything but."

"I'm truly not hungry--"

They both still when John's stomach loudly proclaimed him a liar. Defeated, he smiled weakly and agrees on the steak.

The Bell residence's decor is minimal. Gannon prefers dark colors and Dustin cannot abide clutter. The results are dark gray walls and utilitarian furnishings with only quilts and large, potted, tropical plants to soften the edges. The pleading, dying woman in an upstairs loo did nothing to diminish the surprisingly domestic effect.

"May I?" John asked though he didn't wait for permission. He caught Dustin's airy wave from the corner of his eyes.  
Fresh blood tugged him up a short flight of stairs and down a hall to the last door accompanied by a trio of bubbles. It opened and John nods a greeting to Gannon who absently returned it. The room is covered in plastic except for the tiled floor. A woman hung from her lacerated wrists over a grate in it.

John didn't have the strength or knowledge to get through the deadly eldritch fire twisting in and out of the naked body in hypnotically beautiful patterns. The weaving motions seem to keep beat with her shattered sobbing. "Are the blades through her forearms necessary?"

"She was a plastic surgeon whose clientele are the wives and lovers of despots and drug lords.” Gannon shrugged, the energy coiled tighter, leaving afterimages in the air. Squelching, pulping noises renders John mute with horror. "She will suffer worse if she manages to survive this."

Which she wasn’t judging by the dark blood pooling into the grout lines. "Why?" He managed.

This is not interrogation. It's execution. She's stripped so completely the air around her is vacuum. Humans are a miasma of memories, expectations and experience with hidden, explosive tangles and such thick layers it creates a permanent aura. It can and did leave behind impressions which not even physical death can erase.

"Worked on a few of Sebastian Moran's associates. They managed to infiltrate MI5." Gannon shrugged again releasing his Manipulations. Her final gasp seems to suck what little air is left out with her. The body goes slack and heavy, and Gannon grunted as if he'd physically dropped her. "Hn, folks were unhappy about that."

"I see." And he did. Dustin apparently had just returned from meeting his handler when they ran into one another. As if the heavy-grade Wards haven't already imprinted the entire exchange, transferring deceptively mild words, messy emotions and all, to whoever is Watching. Nothing quite like bureaucratic redundancies though.

"He'll be staying for good, this time."

"He?" Confused, John reluctantly turned to Gannon. "This time?"

"Your man with the odd need to tag those closest to him..." John's glance sharpened and Gannon sighed then swept both hands behind John's ears.

He almost rearranged the other man's face in surprise but stepped back, remembering the wings. He had gone out in public like this. Flustered all he managed was, "He's not mine."

" _That's_ what you got out of everything I just said?" Incredulous actually looked good on Dustin's husband. It made him a tad more memorable in any case. John squinted and decided Gannon's eyes might be blue, unremarkable as his own.

"If it helps any Sherlock is as close to a Master Manipulator as we can get these days. His works are seamless. No one, not even those trained to look for it--" Gannon cocked an eyebrow and shrugged yet again, "--i.e. me, were able to sense a Shield activating within the city's Wards. It took you patting the air around your ears for me to figure it out."

John is mortified but before he could protest one of the bubbles bobbing over Gannon bursts and Dustin's voice is as clear as if he's in the room with them, "Dinner's ready!"

"Be a few minutes, love," Gannon replied, voice coloring with softer emotions. He wrinkled his nose at the body, "Steak. You are a terrible influence, John."

.

Indicating a suit, mask, goggles and gloves for John similar to his own Gannon went back to quietly but carefully cleaning up. Once John is suited and adjusted to Gannon's liking the other man sprayed the plastic sheets down with a solution that burnt John's eyes. He's not familiar with it it but his own abilities allow him to note how it seemed to eat the blood without corroding anything else around it. Maybe with a little more time he could have figured out what was going on.

Sherlock chose that moment to slam through the door, eyes narrowing immediately in on the corpse and announced, "She's an identical twin."

"Did I kill the wrong one?" Asked Gannon. Not, "How do you know?" Or "What are you doing here?"

"Carla St. Peter died four months ago."

"Hn, this was Darla then," Gannon acknowledged and went back to stripping down the sheeting.

"You don't even know?" John asked, aghast.

Gannon tilted his head as if John is a newly discovered species of cute then to Sherlock, asked, "Staying for dinner?"

"No." Sherlock turned to John and demanded, "Come back." A frown flickered across those expressive brows, apparently in remembrance to add, "Please."

John could actually see his entire train of thoughts and deductions leading up to it. His easy, "Okay." knocked Sherlock a step back, as if he hadn't expected such an easy victory.

After removing the gear John walked past him without further thoughts or words about it. He was so very tired.

"Your steak!" Dustin cried out.

"Here, take mine," Gannon said, clasping John on his good shoulder as he walked past to help his husband pack the still bleeding slabs of meat. "Aaand it's dinner for two!"

Sherlock's dark coat is all John saw striding past him, while closer Gannon whispered theatrically, "I'm a closet romantic so make this work!" And herded him out.

To Sherlock he tossed out, "Welcome home, sir! Good luck!" before closing the door nearly on John's heels.

"It's a shaman's curse."

Brows furrowing John's confused, "What?" is smothered by Sherlock's impatient, "The European Eagle Owl. I killed its Manipulator. Pity I couldn't persuade her to leave her villagers and superstitions behind."

"Wait, this shaman was able to give animals sentience and this change was permanent?"

"Yes, a true Manipulator, not even I can claim that." Sherlock did not slow down but 221B opened before him without fail. He sailed majestically through, bouncing curls and all. "The owl was aware enough of its Manipulator's death and became her revenge."

Even John winced as his own shrieked, "What?! And you brought it back?" rends the air.

"I grew rather fond of it," Sherlock replied a touch defensively. "It's almost as loyal as you, following me and saving me, wanting to be the one who will kill me. Unfortunately it took the fatal bullet."

"So," John sputtered, "so--"

"I thought you two would get along. I'm, of course, correct." Sherlock posed on the staircase, then blinked down at John. "Home? I was not sure if you wanted me back."

"This will always be your home, you git," exasperated, John closed the door. "And you can't just shove the spirit of the poor thing into me!"

Sherlock slowly descended, hesitant, and extends an awkward hand to pat John's shoulder, "I will always come back to you, John."

His prepared reply for whatever the mad bastard's excuses were for his selfishness was so physical he'd been collecting ice packs and safety kits for collateral damage. He couldn't remember a single word.

Sherlock, without fail, ruined the moment, "It wanted to be alive again and I already have your permission."

"When?!"

"When I asked if you trusted me and you replied yes."

"That was before you disappeared for two years."

"Do you trust me?"

"No!"

"Too late." Sherlock gleefully bounded up the stairs two at a time and disappeared into his room with a resounding thud of the door closing before John even reached the first landing.

.

They settle into a routine. Not their old one but something close enough that it hurts and heals at the same time: John wakes up, brushed his teeth in the shower, shaves, eats breakfast and goes to work. He comes back and cooks dinner. They eat separately even if Sherlock remained in the same room. Sometimes Sherlock has a request and John tries to make the dish. He knows he fails most of the time but Sherlock always finishes his portion, smiling faintly.

Mycroft has not, suspiciously, shown up yet. Not that he has too, it seems Sherlock has no problems eviscerating entire government agencies when Suits and Officiousness come striding in without manners, and usually dressed only in his bed sheets. Strangely, he flayed those he deemed unworthy of the oxygen they're consuming with no hint of superior-than-thou, just a grim determination to excise bureaucratic fat. Often a mercurial glance and a twitch of his brows would accomplish the same thing. All over a secured up-link. Everyone keeps their distance from the bladed curls of fire that now always encircles him.

The paparazzi is nowhere to be seen either, and John is very worried about that. Sherlock's stock answer was, "The media's collective Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is in full effect." Usually followed by a demand for tea or to know where his various experiments were. The Wards are very happy to show him what John did with them.

The sulks were just as epic as John remembered only without the rose-tinted nostalgia to smudge over the unpleasantness of having a Master Manipulator cross with him. Nearly being fired after four days of being locked in without a single working electronic due to the Wards listening only to Sherlock's Commands is the least of it.

Mrs. Hudson, terrifyingly, cannot hear him. Waking up starkers with a very disgruntled owl spirit causing havoc in random areas of the flat being another.

(The owl takes over his body in his sleep and tries to kill Sherlock. Expediently Sherlock has found John's natural, mult-layered modesty to be so deeply ingrained that if he strips owl-John then John-John will actually wake up. Sherlock replaces the clothes he destroys but then keeps them in his room forcing John to go search for them in his birthday suit. Somewhere in there John manages to get enough sleep to function correctly at work. Smoothly or with any tact? Not a snowball's chance in Hell.)  
John stared into the fridge, pushing aside the boiled duck embryos still in their shells, then pulled out the vegetable bins.

"Will Sherlock want to eat when he returns?" He's not sure, not anymore. He just knows Sherlock was always hungry these days, but nothing filled him for long.

John noticed the cod filet. A tiny portion of a payment from a grateful client. One of the very few they take on now. He remembered the Thai lemongrass and fish soup recipe he found tucked into his trouser.

Taking the fish, two stalks of lemongrass, half a finger of ginger, a handful of lime leaves, three garlic cloves, and he keeps reading the ingredients out loud. There is no one in the flat to demand silence from him. He lost himself in the monotony of cutting the vegetables, the rhythmic motion of scooping them up and dumping them into the pot.

A frisson of awareness makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle. "Sherlock," he acknowledged, not bothering to look up as he brings the boiling water down a notch and add bits of cod.

There was no warning. Between one breath and the next John was standing alone in the kitchen then there are hands on his hips, delicately curled, as if he's made of spun glass and will break with the slightest pressure. They don't linger, immediately sliding up underneath his jumper, trailing shivers and goose flesh, following the curve of his ribs now, up, up, and back around to trace his shoulder blades. A hot palm covers the bullet's exit wound. John can almost feel the pulse in the thumb resting against scar tissue.

He continued stirring the soup knowing Sherlock will not stop until he's made sure for himself that John is whole, unmarked. It's only been nine hours since they last saw each other. Even when he lifted John's feet to strip him, to look at his soles and between his legs, John no longer questioned or even noticed anymore. This is a reassurance Sherlock does not need--or want, much to John's early confusion--his participation in.

John shuddered--Sherlock's grip tightened on his upper thigh--and remembered finding Moriarty's Sigil on his left butt cheek after Kitty Riley's report came out. It was only at that moment did memories of being Manipulated after the kidnapping and being wrapped in Semtex at the pool came back. Just as Moriarty planned.

When the Manipulation was in effect no one could see it or feel it. Sherlock didn't check, taking John's word at face value that he was all right. His own skin betrayed Sherlock for more than a year.

Sherlock breathed in deeply against his neck and John slowly lets a breath out. When the taller man starts pulling John's clothes back on John allowed him. Somehow he managed to turn the cooker off, move the pot and ladle the soup into bowls.

A cheekbone pressed against his right temple and puffs of air tangled in his eyelashes, "John."

"Still here."

"Mmmh," rumbled deep within the chest flush against John's back.

"Shall we eat?" John asked, rubbing his temple along Sherlock's jaw.

Sherlock snagged the tray and utensils out of his grasp in one uncoiling move, his coat flaring with textured darkness behind him. John followed sedately with napkins and drinks, and Sherlock's glistening fire twisted around them both.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This drawing I did was the inspiration for this entire series and its world building. I'm self-taught and I suck at drawing feathers/bird anatomy. Ugh.
> 
> Wait, would this be considered a wing fic?

[](http://s598.photobucket.com/user/Mucilinda/media/20150111_194736.jpg.html)

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://investigator-mutsuki.tumblr.com)


End file.
